A semi-truck burst into flames beneath the Gowanus Expressway in Bay Ridge on Saturday afternoon, sending thick black smoke billowing up onto the elevated highway above as fire crews rushed to the scene. Fire and EMS personnel were called to 6502 6th Avenue just before 3 p.m., and officials say no one was injured in the blaze.
FDNY dispatched 79 personnel to the scene and had the fire under control in just over 30 minutes, according to News12 New York. Footage captured on the Citizen app showed orange flames shooting from the truck and dark smoke rising onto the expressway deck overhead. The cause of the fire was not immediately known, per the outlet's report.
Why a Fire Under the Viaduct Raises Extra Concern
The Gowanus Expressway was originally built in 1941 and now carries more than 170,000 vehicles a day. A fire beneath the highway could raise concerns about nearby infrastructure.
New York State Department of Transportation inspection manuals call for special structural inspections following significant fire or vehicular impact events on state-maintained bridges and elevated viaducts, in order to evaluate load-bearing steel components and connections. Whether that kind of post-fire assessment was carried out for Saturday's incident is not known.
A Corridor Under Constant Repair
The 6.1-mile Gowanus viaduct, which connects the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge to the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel, has been the subject of multi-million-dollar rehabilitation work in recent years, including structural steel repair and replacement, cleaning and painting, bearings, and deck-joint work, according to project details from IH Engineers, P.C. Under the city's Through Truck Route Network, route obligations for trucks with two axles and six tires, or three or more axles, depend on their origins and destinations, and the rules distinguish local from through routes, per the NYC Department of Transportation.
The city's truck-routing framework governs commercial truck travel.
Not the First Truck Fire on Brooklyn's Highways This Year
Saturday's fire is not an isolated incident along Brooklyn's I-278 corridor. In August, a truck fire blocked all eastbound lanes of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway near Flushing Avenue, requiring multiple engine units to manage the blaze and the resulting traffic back-ups, as reported by Patch. Further back, the article also references October 2017 in its discussion of Brooklyn highway incidents.
Nationally, vehicle fires are a persistent hazard on highways. U.S. fire departments respond to an estimated 196,000 highway vehicle fires each year, resulting in roughly 579 deaths, with mechanical and electrical failures cited as the leading causes of non-collision truck blazes, according to National Fire Protection Association data cited by Silver Law Group. In New York City specifically, the article discusses FDNY in connection with fire response.
A Rough Stretch for Bay Ridge Fire Crews
Saturday's blaze adds to a broader discussion of fire emergencies this year. The article also references other incidents and emergency responses.
For now, what sparked Saturday's semi-truck fire remains unclear, and officials have not said whether the cargo or a mechanical breakdown was to blame. What is clear is that no one was hurt, and FDNY firefighters controlled the fire in just over 30 minutes beneath the Gowanus Expressway.
